“We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once”
“Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.””
-from ‘Happiness Theories I Reject’ on http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/secrets-of-adulthood.html
Stoic Eudaimonia
…Aristotle takes virtue and its exercise to be the most important constituent in eudaimonia but does acknowledge the importance of external goods such as health, wealth, and beauty. By contrast, the Stoics make virtue necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia and thus deny the necessity of external goods….
- From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia
Chuck Palahniuk: The moment you can conceive of something, you’re burdened by that possibility until that thing happens
“Q. Do you consider what your audience will tolerate in terms of violence? Is it something that you are intentionally pushing or is it a natural part of the story?
A. In my half-understanding of Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, there was a concept – I don’t know if it was dread or angst – where at the moment you can conceive of something, you’re burdened by that possibility until that thing happens or you do that thing. So the moment I think of something I would never write about, it becomes a burden until I find some way to make that horrible thing work in fiction. I swore that I would never have an animal killed gratuitously in anything I ever wrote, and then I got the idea for dropping the rat down the garbage disposal, that hideous scene, and how that could be used to show Pygmy in emotional conflict and make him a very sympathetic character in that moment. It’s not really about what the reader can tolerate, but rather about finding some way to exorcise my demons and to put them on the page in a useful way so that they’re not gratuitous and actually accomplish something in the story.”
- Interview excerpt with Chuck from “Chuck Palahniuk’s ‘Pygmy’ is Huge” http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2009/05/11/chuck-palahniuk-s-pygmy-is-huge.aspx
‘Delicately glum’
“Elena is an orphan, and she grieves as deeply as a network teen soap can allow her too. That is, she is delicately glum, merely this and nothing more. In trying to disguise her grief, she is equivalent to every other high-school girl anxious about being normal. “
- from “The Vampire Diaries”
http://www.slate.com/id/2227802?wpisrc=newsletter
“The truth about lying: who does it, and why”
“But why lie to appear competent or likable? Why not just be yourself? In fact, “just being yourself”, if we examine it closely, takes creative effort. Our expression of who we are involves choices that reflect social and interpersonal context, our mood, our personality, our need to maintain our self-image and so on. If we consider self-presentation as a creative process, we can see how it can easily slide into deception. Every interaction involves decisions about which attributes to emphasise and which to minimise, which impulses to follow and which to ignore. At some point, we may not be choosing among our actual traits and our sincere reactions. We may simply fabricate the traits and reactions the social situation calls for, or that we think it calls for. In other words, we might lie.”
- a paragraph from http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/08/truth-about-lying
Current Myers-Briggs results
Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving
I reckon this is more accurate – seems to be more similar moodiness to what I have
INTP result: http://similarminds.com/cgi-bin/pairmbword.pl
Introverted (I) 66.67% Extroverted (E) 33.33%
Intuitive (N) 58.33% Sensing (S) 41.67%
Thinking (T) 54.17% Feeling (F) 45.83%
Perceiving (P) 50% Judging (J) 50% ->THIS IS A TIE, could be INTJ instead
INTP descriptions: http://typelogic.com/intp.html
‘Architect’ (INTJ is ‘Mastermind’/'Scientist’)
————
Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving
INFP result: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes3.asp
| Introverted | Intuitive | Feeling | Perceiving |
| Strength of the preferences % | |||
| 33 | 62 | 50 | 11 |
This says ‘feeling’ and ‘thinking’ are a tie – which could make me INTP as above.
You are:
- moderately expressed introvert
- distinctively expressed intuitive personality
- moderately expressed feeling personality
- slightly expressed perceiving personality
‘Healer’ or ‘Questor’
————
Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
INFJ Result: http://www.personalitytest.net/cgi-bin/a.pl
‘Author’
————
All three (INTP, INTJ, INFP, INFJ) interestingly are a very low percentage of population.
Looks like I’m certainly an Introverted intuitive.
Although this is pretty dumb – I just did another one and got a totally different result and nearly all the values were 50/50% or 45/55%!
Derr – I’m smart but indecisive. I’m impatient but prefer time to research options. I think love is the most important thing in the world but sometimes doubt it’s existence and think that people are only driven by animal and conditioned logic. Etc etc.
Sator – finally, I knew it!
Sator = LATIN sower| planter; founder| progenitor (usu. divine); originator
(also found: planter, father, creator)
(also: Pavilion-Stall-Tabernacle-Tent-Booth in croatian/serbian – also in mountain name)
(also: a type of lizard)
(See Sator square: Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas )
Gesamtkunstwerk
A gesamtkunstwerk (often translated as universal artwork, synthesis of the arts, comprehensive artwork, all-embracing art form, total work of art, or total artwork [1]) is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so.
- from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerk
Turmoil = fantasy = woo!
Impulse-control is an especially resonant theme in the current era of conflicts and cutbacks.
“Periods of war, economic downturns and cultural turmoil all give rise to the production of vampire and fantasy fiction,”
said Thomas Garza, chair of the department of Slavic and Eurasian studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and a specialist in vampire lore.
“With a recession and war, the conflict has indeed seemed to turn inward, as we question our fiscal, political and moral status. ‘Have we been too excessive? Do we need to be more restrained?’ We seem once again to be questioning these very fundamental values.”
- From http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/fashion/02VAMPIRES.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
So, still in with a chance then.
Also – read today a half-joking article asking why we don’t have more Gen Y writers crashing on about blow jobs and drugs.
Thoughts:
-They are blogging & uninterested in anything their friends don’t read.
-Old media is run by baby boomers.
-Whatever they write will follow them on the internet forever and they know it so going Gonzo is harder to justify.
-Good point – where is *our* Chuck Paulaniuk? Our Easton-Ellis?? I judge them as mine but they are really Gen X’s. So hmm. Maybe in with a chance there still too…
